Heat After Dark (Japan 1998)

Blast from the past! Here's a review I wrote about three years ago on my first film review website "Only Foreign Film". Don't worry, it'll be over soon.

***
Director: Ryuhei Kitamura

Kitamura finally made an art film.

Gone are the kinetic camera moves, kung-fu, over the top violence and leather. Here are the long shots, silent musing, dramatic pretense and long static pans. But does this make it a bad film?

Two low-time hoods kidnap a local gang boss and put him in the trunk of there car. When suddenly they’re assaulted by a motorcycle riding police officer, the body gets the chance to get up and get moving. The two then decided to enter a deserted warehouse to follow the body before it gets the chance to return to civilization. But both of them have bitten off more than they can chew. The body brought a bag which hid a gun, ammo and a cell phone. And before you can say “Oh crap I shouldn’t have left that gun loaded”, local Yakuzas have found the warehouse and are bent on getting there boss out. At any cost.

I popped the disc into my player with a giddy look of expectation on my face. Here was another film from the man who brought us the great “Down to hell” and “Versus. But if the first scene gave me any indication, I was wrong in my expectations. The scene itself is a long shot from below the waist as the two hoods stand in a bar and talk endlessly. While all along, the camera follows them as they move from one side of the room to the other. Slowly as the scene progresses a drunken man in the background garners are attention. Until the final phrase is uttered and the two men jump on the drunken man, knock him out, and drag him out of frame.
There wasn’t any spinning camera moves in that scene. It was just an intimate moment between two friends as they decided what to do and then ‘just did it’. All the while staying in one place, keeping the viewers fixated on specific object in the room. If there’s one thing I’d like to applaud other than the direction is the lighting. Because when you light such a simple-low budget film as this one, your creative juices usually just aren’t flowing. But the every scene in this film is an awe to see (Hats off to the cinematography) as it takes place almost exclusively in an abandoned warehouse. Every little dust might is illustrated as a beam of light hits the characters in the face. Only shadowing half of there body as one of them realizes that his clip is empty.

Action wise it’s not a smorgasbord of John-Woo style gunplay. Instead it plays the hunter/hunted vibes as bullets will zing by characters , but they just don’t know were they’re coming from. This squashes the factor of acrobatics. No roles, dives or jumps. Just ducking and screaming at they’re partner to watch out. But Kitamura used his budget to a beautiful extent here, maximizing everything he had (Notice that all the guns appeared in Versus. 3 years later.) The score is a masterwork in itself. Employing music to fit the tone perfectly. Whether it’s a slow jazz beat or a bit more technical guitar riff, the artist pulled his tricks and laid the cards down on the table.

Other than the fact that everyone pretty much strikes a pose every 20 seconds, and that the characters are as stylized as can be, this barely feels like the old Kitamura we know. This is good, because many of you have always accused him of creating worthless-drivel. Pumped with so much excitement that it flat lines any depth the film may have had. If you are a kitamura fan, or a kitmura hater. You still owe it to yourself to see this short. (It’s about 48 minutes long.) If you’re nervous about buying the film without subtitles you’ll have to take the plunge. Because it doesn’t look like it’ll be getting a subbed release anytime soon. Especially with this marking itself as the *Deluxe* edition. Other than the first 10 minutes, dialogue is pretty short and self explanatory. The story is simple and straightforward.

DVD:
At a paltry 48 minutes you’d expect the film to have appeared somewhere else as a supplement. The film is presented in a letterbox format, which deftly highlights the dark and grimy feel of the environment which the picture takes place. The special features are all new, created exclusively for this release. It includes an interview with the director, composer and main actors. All un-subbed of course (DAMN!)